Lexington Herald Leader: Max Gilpin's Legacy.
Max Gilpin's legacy
A jury has decided that David Jason Stinson is not guilty of reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the death of Max Gilpin, a 15-year-old who played football for him at Pleasure Ridge High School in Louisville.
That may have been the only decision the jurors could reach after days of conflicting expert testimony and divergent accounts of just what happened that hot August afternoon last year.
Gilpin's mother, Michele Crockett, acknowledged that prosecutors took a big chance pursuing the case, which she described as "an uphill battle." But it was worth it, she said, to have a public telling of the events that led up to her son's death.
It's a gruesome story.
Players testified that Stinson, wanting to punish them for lack of effort during practice in the 90-plus degree heat, ordered them to sprint until someone quit the team. They ran for 40 minutes. A player said Stinson called him a coward when he vomited during the sprints; two adults watching a soccer game nearby were appalled by what they saw.
Two players did walk off the team; two others were taken to a hospital. One of them, Max Gilpin, died there. A paramedic who treated him on the way to the hospital said Gilpin's skin was hot to the touch. In the hospital more than an hour after he collapsed, Gilpin's temperature was 107 degrees and he was unresponsive.
Stinson, in a statement to the Louisville police, said he never saw players vomit during the sprints and didn't see Gilpin go down. He said he didn't know anything about Gilpin's collapse until later, during a team meeting.
The Jefferson County Public Schools, which has seemed more than content to stay on the sidelines in this story, announced Monday that Stinson, who had been in a non-teaching position since January, was cleared to return to the classroom. He's also free to apply for a coaching position, the district said. Stinson, who appeared on Good Morning America Tuesday, wants to coach again, his attorney said.
So many questions remain unanswered in this case. Could Gilpin have been saved if an athletic trainer had been on the scene or the coaches who were there had better training and equipment to deal with heat-related stress? Why didn't Stinson know that Gilpin and other players were stressed in the heat? Was the school district more concerned about managing the public relations damage than getting to the truth about why and how one of its students died?
The big unanswered question, though, is this: Will it happen again?
The prosecutors and Gilpin's parents believe that prosecuting this case will cause coaches to pay more attention to their players. A state law passed in the wake of Gilpin's death mandates that at least one coach who has passed a four- to five-hour online sports course is present at all practices and games. Many schools and districts made water breaks more frequent and took other precautions against heat-related illness after Gilpin died.
So, there's evidence that Gilpin's death and Stinson's prosecution have served as a wake-up call in high school athletics. The challenge will be to assure that the adults in charge stay awake in years to come when this trial is history and impressionable young people go out on hot summer days to prove themselves.
A jury has decided that David Jason Stinson is not guilty of reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the death of Max Gilpin, a 15-year-old who played football for him at Pleasure Ridge High School in Louisville.
That may have been the only decision the jurors could reach after days of conflicting expert testimony and divergent accounts of just what happened that hot August afternoon last year.
Gilpin's mother, Michele Crockett, acknowledged that prosecutors took a big chance pursuing the case, which she described as "an uphill battle." But it was worth it, she said, to have a public telling of the events that led up to her son's death.
It's a gruesome story.
Players testified that Stinson, wanting to punish them for lack of effort during practice in the 90-plus degree heat, ordered them to sprint until someone quit the team. They ran for 40 minutes. A player said Stinson called him a coward when he vomited during the sprints; two adults watching a soccer game nearby were appalled by what they saw.
Two players did walk off the team; two others were taken to a hospital. One of them, Max Gilpin, died there. A paramedic who treated him on the way to the hospital said Gilpin's skin was hot to the touch. In the hospital more than an hour after he collapsed, Gilpin's temperature was 107 degrees and he was unresponsive.
Stinson, in a statement to the Louisville police, said he never saw players vomit during the sprints and didn't see Gilpin go down. He said he didn't know anything about Gilpin's collapse until later, during a team meeting.
The Jefferson County Public Schools, which has seemed more than content to stay on the sidelines in this story, announced Monday that Stinson, who had been in a non-teaching position since January, was cleared to return to the classroom. He's also free to apply for a coaching position, the district said. Stinson, who appeared on Good Morning America Tuesday, wants to coach again, his attorney said.
So many questions remain unanswered in this case. Could Gilpin have been saved if an athletic trainer had been on the scene or the coaches who were there had better training and equipment to deal with heat-related stress? Why didn't Stinson know that Gilpin and other players were stressed in the heat? Was the school district more concerned about managing the public relations damage than getting to the truth about why and how one of its students died?
The big unanswered question, though, is this: Will it happen again?
The prosecutors and Gilpin's parents believe that prosecuting this case will cause coaches to pay more attention to their players. A state law passed in the wake of Gilpin's death mandates that at least one coach who has passed a four- to five-hour online sports course is present at all practices and games. Many schools and districts made water breaks more frequent and took other precautions against heat-related illness after Gilpin died.
So, there's evidence that Gilpin's death and Stinson's prosecution have served as a wake-up call in high school athletics. The challenge will be to assure that the adults in charge stay awake in years to come when this trial is history and impressionable young people go out on hot summer days to prove themselves.
Labels: High school sports, Keeping them honest
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 3:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home